It Comes [来る] is the lastest work of Tetsuya Nakashima [中島哲也], and his most publicized release up to this point, with dozens of TV sketches and lots of social media PR (indicating he's slowly becoming a major figure among Japanese filmmakers, considering he took the industry by surprise with Confessions [告白] and has mantained a high profile since then). It Comes also constitutes his first incursion into the supernatural horror genre, although Nakashima has not only flirted with horror in his works but portrayed its most insidious and real dimensions, inserted into ordinary existence. From the rawness and abusive aspects of his otherwise comedic Memories Of Matsuko [嫌われ松子の一生] to the nefarious indulgences of The World Of Kanako [渇き], Tetsuya has proved his talent for capturing the darkest traits of mankind in everyday settings. All of them being adaptations from Japanese novels by diverse authors, It Comes pushes Nakashima's films into the spirit realm by means of the original Here Comes Bogiwan [ぼぎわんが、来る], written by horror author Ichi Sawamura [澤村 伊智]. The film still lacks English release as far as I know, and thus I watched the original version, Japanese dubbed/subbed, courtesy of the Chinese BT network.
It Comes deals with a figure of folk Shintō [民族神道, Minzoku Shintō], that is, of the popular beliefs about spirits, tricksters and auxiliar deities not sanctioned by Shintō priesthood but rather part of ancestral non-written canon of oral transmission. While canonical texts such as the Kojiki [古事記] or the Nihon Ŝoki [日本書紀] acknowledge the existence of a 'myriad of spirits', they do not account for a vast majority of the popular religious/superstitious beliefs of the islands. And not only they lack information about monsters and magical creatures quite popular in Japanese folk belief, but also fail to explain the origin of tutelar deities of chief importance, such as Inari [稲荷] or Ebisu [恵比須]. Of these creatures typical of folk belief, many share equivalents with world traditions, and the Hitosarai [人攫い ] is no exception. A Hitosarai is a creature or spirit which either kidnaps or substitutes children, for a variety of different purposes; in this shares conceptual roots with the Changelings of European culture (recently portrayed in The Hole in the Ground, 2019), and with the modern Boogeyman. In fact, Ichi Sawamura gives his particular monster that same name, Bogiwan, ぼぎわんが, as a corrupt translation of its description by a foreign missionary during the Muromachi period (1336-1573), being a demonic entity kidnapping children in Mie Prefecture [三重県].
This spiritual background can be felt through the movie, even though Nakashima restrains its manifestations and explanations to very punctual moments along the film (such as the trippy introduction, the final of the first act and the grand finale), to the point of rendering much of the movie cryptic or lacking exposition. Compared to Confessions and its gathering of life perspectives, or The World Of Kanako's recollection of temporally disjointed moments, It Comes is not that obvious at resolving its own pieces of information, thus relying more in its original material it seems. Just as its novel, It Comes is narrated from three different points of view chronologically ordered. It starts out narrating the everyday life of newlywed Hideki Tahara, a salaryman elated by his marriage to a beautiful woman who hides a disfunctional relationship with her own family, Kana Tahara. Their happiness is further increased by the birth of a little girl, Chisa; this event transforms Hideki to the point of starting out a blog detailing all his feelings as a father figure, earning the love and recognition of his friends and co-workers. Yet, deep down he is deeply disturbed by scattered memories of his childhood at the countryside; also his character is volatile and his relationship with Kana far from perfect (a common theme in Nakashima's film trajectory). His peace is completely blown up as terrible and mysterious incidents become frequent at his home and surroundings.
Hideki's disturbing memories concretize aroung a forgotten childhood friend, a girl about to be kidnapped and sent out to the mountain [お山] in her own words. The mountain, symbol of the numinous and sacred in Shintō, has always been approached with fear and respect in traditional Japanese thought, and its inclusion in the movie perfectly reflects such character in the tone and circumstances under which they speak or it. Hideki's search of the past and present will lead him upon something quite terrible. The second point of view thus becomes that of his wife, Kana Tahara. Doing as much as she can to raise Chisa for herself, she begins to spiral into madness and desperation, she becomes acquainted with Kon Nozaki, a journalist of occult matters, and his contacts on spiritual matters.
The third point of view is then that of Nozaki himself; a reserved, independed minded researcher, he is set to stop the seemingly entity focused on the Tahara family, and to achieve this he gets major help from the Higa Sisters. These two are the actual protagonists of the novels, as Ichi Sawamura includes them in all his horror works. Here they are Makoto Higa (incarnated by the mercurial Nana Komatsu [小松 菜奈], who had been Kanako herself in Nakashima's adaptation) and Kotoko Higa (courtesy of Takako Matsu [松 たか子], none other than the unforgettable teacher in Confessions). They two are representative of Nakashima's major works and thus this feels as the closing of a circle. Makoto Higa is a dispossessed medium who never wanted to be one; a punk pub hostess, she became receptive to the supernatural by touching her big sister's scars, product of the agression of numerous entities as she trained to be a professional Shintō priestress and shaman. Her training completed, Kotoko Higa is a determined and powerful ally against the Hitosarai, and she incartantes the major virtues and proceedings of a Shintō faithful, from reading norito [祝詞] (sacred speech) to performing exorcism.
As the film rushes to a spectacular last act, there are quite important scenes which can feel overshadowed by either the flashy scenes of murder or posession, or the expansion on various characters, such as Hideki's memories of his grandfather. One fair critique of this movie is its need to be spectacular when compared with Nakashima's previous works, mimicking some conventions in high-budgeted Japanese movies (from scene framing to lightning, which were highly innovative back in Confessions or Memories of Matsuko). While the script, acting and music share the director's style, much of the execution and production seem standarized to a degree; I'd decribe it as a mixture between your average horror-blockbuster (as any of the Sadako franchise, unnecessarily expanded) and a highly obscure, Shintō-inspired horror indie film (as the always amazing Noroi [ノロイ] from 2005). Taking into account how downhill has J-Horror gone from a time, unable to produce memorable pieces such as those of the early 2000's (such as Kairo [回路] (2001) or Dark Water [仄暗い水の底から] (2002)), and has shifted into more than one money-grabbing rehearsal of previous glories, this time highly budgeted and stiffly acted, It Comes actually feels as a breath of fresh air. While the Japanese filmmaking industry is not as big and profitable as the American one, and thus yields less uniformity on a regular basis, one can argue it needs to reactivate itself in the face of an amazing surge of, let's say, South Korean horror films such as The Wailing [곡성] (2016).
But these are minor inconvenients in what it totaly feels as an 'author cinema' film, comprising many of the themes and tecniques that have consacrated Tetsuya Nakashima as one of the more daring and innovative Japanese filmmakers. It also feels incredibly knowledgeable about Japanese religion, and in fact is a 'quite Japanese film' if you deconstruct many of the elements it gives to you, unexplained. As an example, Nozaki finds himself at a river during various scenes; at its shore, crying babies are being thrown at the waters. The river is obviously Sanzu [三途], the one of the land of the dead, and its shore is Sai no Kawara [賽の河原], a prominent element in folk religiosity. At other ocassion, Kotoko Higa warns Hideki Tahara of knives and mirrors, two ceremonial elements of protection which, along with the jewel, are the Three Treasures of Shintō. The ofuda [御札] or paper amulets are apotropaic elements all too-common in Japan, and yet very few Horror films make any use of them.
When Kotoko calls out for all help she can gather from fellow priests and shamans, these are really well depicted: either senior and respectable male priests heads of Sanctuary Shintō [神社神道] coming by plane or cheerful middle-aged woman with strong rural accents, by humble car. Their ritual performance is something to behold, as they attempt to purify the creature's presence from the apartment block complex, observing all the formalities. Also, she actually reads norito prayers outloud (something quite hard to do), and not the typical made-up formulae of horror flicks such as: ''Back Up!'' or ''Go Away''. Another bit of realism is how during the exorcism Nozaki gets kidnapped as he sneaks away to reach the bathroom: while Kotoko complies with all the purity requests necessary for protection against the kegare [穢れ] (the corruption or filth which Shintō seeks to purify, product of death, sickness, and bodily fuilds, particularly -but not only- asocciated with acts of violence such as dead, birth and many others), Nozaki opens a path for the entity due to his using the bathroom and thus turns vulnerable. These details are really enjoyable and in fact quite rare in films of this nature; mixed with amazing acting (in my book Takako Matsu takes the trophy here, as she did in Confessions) and a plot capable of getting you in the seat for its two hours of running time, as the entity concretizes itself, It Comes is perhaps the Japanese film of the year, and has been one of the most anticipated for sure. I hope its success at cinemas will lead to more projects coming from Tetsuya Nakashima, in the way to expand a filmography as consistent as very few others.
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